"eBay helps to plug the holes and more"
By Mike Stella

When I started looking at Lionel on eBay about five years ago, there was a total of about 20 pages or 1000 individual items listed. Today there are more then 20 pages listed every day and well over 10,000 individual items available to bid on!

eBay has certainly changed collecting for me. Nothing is rare! Everything becomes available. All it takes is money, a LOT of money. Items that rarely turn up at meets show up on eBay time and time again. I went out to the Lionel Railroad (the Largest Lionel Railroad on my Block) the other night and snapped a few pictures of trains that were first sighted by me on my PC, successfully bid on, and delivered to my front door. HURRAH for eBay!!

A #3665 Minuteman Boxcar with Light Blue roof.	Same car, Dark Blue roof, but a hole in the side like the #3619 shell.
The #3665 with Black roof and #3619 with Blue roof came from the same collector. Odd?	Extremely HTF flat with NO lettering at all. Shown with flat w/o number.
The Purple B&M came from eBay. The GLOSSY Blue was discovered thanks to a listing.	A #6315 style w/o any markings at all. Very RARE?
Black #6816 and #6817 turn up all the time on eBay. Rare? I think not!	Lionel Factory Sale item #9237 UPS boxcar prototype.
The #9879 Kraft Reefer is a special car with a special history.	The #9739 without a silver roof. Very tough to locate.
Variation in location of #6650. Hard to spot on eBay but well worth the trouble.	The Bassett-Lowke came from Australia. Great eBay buy.
Flat cars always turn up. The #6826 with standing trees is homemade to look like AF.	How many different transformers can you find on the #6818?
This WHITE #6356 goes along with an old white barrel car I have on display.	Somebody "stretched" a Lionel cab and created a beautiful BIG 4-8-4. I like it!
A #8141 with YELLOW STRIPE and lettering. Only one I've ever seen. It IS real!	eBay provided the ladderless #6657. A local collector provided the SMOKING #6657.
The Schilling loco/tender came from a store. The cars I found on eBay.	The #4357 comes with and without that little raised catwalk plank.

While I have been able to acquire a number of collectable items from eBay, I still find it near impossible to make out the "8000 Gallons"; the circle around the "L"; and the #6415 I need to complete my three dome tank car collection. I send out questions but many "sellers" think I'm Knutts. Maybe I is!